L is for Let's Have Some More!

A Bit of a follow-up to the previous posts, but once you've got the Phidal's and a few Kinder or other figures on a given theme, they rapidly get their own 'zone' and become a side-collection, so I guess that's what we're looking at here - the bulking-out of two side collections!

 

Encanto again, from Jakks Pacific, I think we may have seen these in a B&M shelfie post sometime over the last 12/18-months, but clearly I weakened when they reappeared in TKMaxx for a pound-twenty a figure! They look like the stampers (coming to the Blog soon) which are everywhere at the moment, but are just stand-alone figurines with very thick bases, for little fingers to manipulate, and weight against fluffy surfaces so they stand up, I suspect!

While I think these, The Nightmare Before Christmas figures, were from B&M? We've been looking at these on and off for several years now, Jada's line of Nano Metalfigs, with various franchises already seen here, I though what is probably a seasonal-special 'whole' set was worth grabbing at the time.

 

I know I've said it before, but it's worth saying again, or I wouldn't say it! I really love these, not because I used to be a small-scale collector, but because the metallic paint is so . . . . thick, deep, lush? I dunno', it's like you can dive into the finish; you won't understand until you've handled a few, but they are very different to anything else I can think of, and among that rarefied class of hard-metal figure which includes the Monogram WWII/Vietnam sets and the equally uncommon Kenner Star Wars die-casts.

E is for Encanto

This is another 'we buy this shit so you don't have to' piece, and I knew straight away what it was, but it was pennies in TKMaxx, so I bought it to prove the point.

 

Like those arch-shaped 'Mini Busy Book' ones a couple of years ago, this 'Tattle Tale' is barely half the contents of the original Busy Book set, but repackaged as a smaller effort, with an even more juvenile 'early reader' board-book. Three of the principal characters and a supporting one.

 

I've tried to find the other figures in similar books, more with the earlier arched ones, and it seems there were probably two tools per original set, and only the one is used on these re-hashes, so you're never going to track down all the figures with these smaller sets, and over time, the other 4/8 items from the original sets will become less common.

B is for back to B&M

Except these were shot months before the ones we saw this morning (yesterday), being the other, larger half of the stuff in the lost folder! It's mostly this modern trend for blind-bag collectables and nothing for toy-soldier purists, but it is what it is, and we shoot this stuff so you don't . . . err . . . you know what I mean!

Rainbow unicorns . . . "Rainbowcorns"! Two types of packaging, a starter set with multiple blind egg capsules and top-up bags in a counter-display carton. Zuru, they're 'up there' with Moose on this stuff!

"Bunnycorn" . . . yeap, you guessed it! Really; it's nasty stuff, in fact, it looks like it's been designed by Douggy Pledger or Dr. Knorkles [Artistic Oddities] in AI!

 

Playmates are chucking-out these Miraculous'ly like Pokémon figures, I know nothing else about them, and probably don't need to!

 

I can see these having more mileage than the above trio, and with larger play sets, there's the whole dolls-house thing going on here, but they will turn-up in mixed lots soon, especially those colourful Charity shop bags, so, if nothing else, it will help list them accurately on evilBay!

 

Not even close to the parameters of this Blog, action figures from the pink/purple end of the spectrum, but I shot them, so they're here! Licensed to Character Options.

 

I've seen these around a few times, and they are squidgy-stretchy types, but not something I'm tripping over myself to seek out! Branded to Jakks Pacific, who I thought had folded a few years ago, Google says I was probably confusing the death of the founder with the death of the company!

 

Another Playmates product, quite a nice set of totally out of scale (with each other) figurines from one of the recent movies, but was it a Godzilla movie or was it a King Kong movie, and does anyone except a hard-core fan give a shit?

 

These 'franchises' are being thrashed to death now, aren't they? Planet of the Apes, Alien-v-Predators, there's supposed to be a new/third Bladerunner on the way . . . sigh! I want new visions, not hackneyed old ones with their arses torn-out of them.

 

Poppy Playtime figures from Phat Mojo, some sort of happy-horror-anime? Wiki' says "Poppy Playtime is a horror video game where the player plays as a former employee of Playtime Co. who returns to the abandoned toy factory of said company . . ." So now I know!

 

These Among Us are of interest both as being boarderline useable space-aliens, and because we saw the same figures without the keychains, as similar blind-bags from Poundland recently? While . . . 

 

. . . these have just been seen WITH keychains (and no bases), in Poundland? The suspicion is, both were poor sellers in whatever was the earlier guise, and are now being cleared any way the wholesaler's can come-up with, and that subsequently the 'Series 1' they both march under will prove to be the only series for either? Both are on-line, multi-player, 'party' games.

 

And it was needing to make/highlight the twin-format point (keychains/no keychains) which led me to realise there was a missing post somewhere, and find it earlier today/yesterday, now. Both from Toikido, the Gang Beasts further branded PMI as manufacturer.

 

And three more, all from the above companies, the Goo Jit Zu from Moose having a window bag rather than being blind, a far more civilised way of doing these things, while both Brawl Stars (PMI) and Pet Simulator X (Phat Mojo)are kids video-games, although why they are still called video-games now technology has moved so far from VHS/Betamax is anyone's guess!

T is for Two - Phidal's Latest

Pleased to say TKMaxx have had a Phidal top-up in time for Christmas, and I've grabbed two - so you don't have to, but you might want to after you've seen them! It's funny, when Spectrum Steve first ID'd these it was fun finding them all and learning to recognise them in mixed lots, now it's a case of keeping up with the output to tick the boxes!

There were four that I could see, the Disney Christmas one Brian Berke sent to the blog a few weeks ago, a 'Cars' one (I have no interest in anthropomorphic vehicles!) and these two, sadly it's the Disney Pooh, not the original, but then we'll never see the original one again - Disney Pooh; insert you own acerbic joke here! Encanto was new to me when also in that Brian B post, from Walmart on that occasion; here's the Phidal set, and I believe a second movie (some underwater stuff) is on the way?

Everything you need for a decent Pooh adventure in the 100 Aker Wood with all the characters except Penguin, who was a late addition and is not well known. The jar of honey though seems too big for a bear with even 'very-little brain' to get his head stuck in?

Lovely Jaguar; Parce, is the highlight here, along with a large Capybara or Chiguiro; Chispi which is also preferable to the humans, in my eyes anyway! But then I haven't seen the movie . . . but I'm thinking along the lines of - they are quite realistic sculpts (for cartoon animals) and could probably be painted to be more so, realistic that is?

Both sets are the new ten-count, but they are big, I struggled to get them in the standard archiving 4x5½ bags I use, and they both got 5x9's after this shot. Consider that the sets of 12 superheroes' back at the start of this Phidal odyssey would fit the smaller bags loosely!

F is for Fearsome Phidals - and a Walmart!

More from Brian B now, and while I'm no fan of a certain squeaky mouse, I realise that some of you are fans of him and his gang, while I keep saying it's all got to appear here eventually, and this is definitely the day for them!

Latest tranche of Phidal releases includes this seasonally themed set. I don't know if it's available in the UK as I haven't managed a trip to TKMaxx for a while now, but it's out there on the Internet wherever you are, I'm sure!

Brian shot this close-up of the set's contents, then went back to the store and took three more shots with a good shake in-between takes . . .

Which leaves us indentifying Mickey as Dracula, Minnie and Daisy as witches/wizards (?), Figaro as himself (you don't mess with a cat), Goofy probably trying to be Frankenstein's Monster, but without the neck-bolt tropes, really also being himself! One of the mouse cousins (Morty?) is a ghost, Pluto has been given a skeleton jumpsuit, and Donald is in a devil-suit, while a more anonymous bat and pumpkin take the set total to ten!

Brain also shot this Disney Encanto figure set in Walmart, I've not encountered it (as a cinematic production) so knew nothing about it, but a quick Google-search filled me on the magical abilities behind the story, so a worthy addition to a Halloween post!

Many thanks again to Mr. Berke.